7 jours et une vie

I wouldn't watch this movie.

I gotta start off by saying that I'm still not sure if Jolie's character was a brunette or a blonde naturally. All the "young Jolie" pictures show her blonde (I thought) but she's obviously not a natural blonde.

Honestly, when I leave a movie that's supposed to make me re-evaluate my life and what it means to live (like American Beauty did) and the only thing I can think about is the hair color of the star I think the movie failed. Sure, it wasn't too hard to watch and it worked out well as a Saturday afternoon hang-out w/ the lady-friend flick, but w/ Jolie I was really hoping this movie would fulfill its promise and be the engaging, interesting, thought-provoking film that it could be. Instead we see very strong similarities to American Beauty w/ a little "To Die For" thrown in for good measure and a helpin' heapin' of a John Cusack film (doesn't really matter which)

What really bugs me about this film though is that I really thought the cast was great. They were so believable (well, except for Jolie's hair, which really is a character in its own right) and their performances were so strong that as I look back on the film I really don't understand where it went wrong...maybe it tried to hard at the end, maybe all the logic fell apart just to bring about the thrilling climax, maybe it felt too much like a parody of tv news to also be the love story/life lesson that it also sought to be. Sure parodies can have morals and realistic love stories but this one doesn't.

I wouldn't avoid this film, but I wouldn't seek it out either.

If one is asked to sit through 99 minutes of a film that ponders, "Living every day as if it were your last," then the film should at least deliver a fresh prospective on this overdone topic. If it fails to do that, perhaps a character that the audience would care about is in order. Life Or Something Like It fails to do both.

Lanie Kerrigan (Angelina Jolie) is a local Seattle news reporter who is being considered for posh job in New York, for "AM USA." She must first prove herself in the field by working with Pete, an experienced cameraman (Edward Burns) whom she supposedly hates. When the ambitious reporter interviews a homeless prophet, he announces that the blonde reporter will die within a week. Once all of his other predictions come true, Jolie's character begins to realize that she is in fact going to die. As Thursday (D-day) quickly approaches, the reporter re-evaluates her own life.

The premise of the film is a little interesting at first. Sure, it has been done over and over again, but various interpretations have their own charm and there is room for more. However the development of the plot is just too obvious and there is nothing new, nor is anything portrayed in a very intriguing way.

While Life was marketed as a light comedy, it is anything but. Comedy would have been a much better direction for the filmmakers, however aside from a few jokes on the sidelines, the film takes itself very seriously. The tone of the script is confused. It's similar to A Knight's Tale which also tried to hopelessly shift between drama and comic relief. In the end, we end up with a picture that doesn't work as a drama or a comedy. Throughout the film, it feels as though the filmmakers kept changing their minds.

Unfortunately the confusion is not the only self-destructive component in the movie. The character development also does the job fairly well. Jolie shows Lanie's ambition sufficiently, but the movie suggests that there is more wrong with her life than a little healthy competition. It seems ridiculous that a person whose real tough faults we haven't seen is trying to change her ways. The movie seems to artificially pull Lanie into changing, instead of using character development as cause for such an evolution. Lanie changes at the end, but the question, "why?" remains. Pete's relationship with Lanie also seems forced. Pete flashes randomly throughout the movie, cueing Lanie's unfolding.

Edward Burns carries his role well enough, but unfortunately there isn't much to carry. Angelina Jolie just doesn't seem to fit into this role and while she is a talented actress, there is something very odd about her in Life. In fact, Tony Shalhoub is the only actor who remotely stands out in this movie. Although his dialogue follows the same scripted fate as the others, Shalhoub manages to express with his voice and facial expression much more than the script actually inhibits.

The script doesn't allow the audience to care much for any of the characters, doesn't contain a single original idea and tends to push ideas aggressively instead of allowing the audience to discover them. The script also leaves off various unresolved mysteries, most of which only seem to act as space fillers. The filmmakers take us towards one direction and back off immediately afterwards. Maybe they forgot? Considering the pacing, most of the audience did too.

Life Or Something Like It is comparable to one scene where Lanie's soon to be ex-boyfriend, Cal, takes Lanie to a ballpark in the middle of the night to throw a few pitches after a heart-to-heart talk. Lanie expects Cal to have some words of wisdom for her, or at least charm - but doesn't catch anything except the ball. Life Or Something Like It won't change your life and it won't change your mood either.

If you need to kill time, see the movie - But what if today is the last day of your life?

Grade: D

Life, or Something Like It. Dumb title if you ask me. Angelina Jolie as a blond? I don't think so. Ed Burns as the love interest? Sounds like a chick-flick or ‘something like it.' All this needed was Greg Kinnear and I think we'd have something like ‘Someone Like You', right? Well not exactly. Although this movie was obviously aimed at the female crowd and used just about every chick-flick cliché under the sun, there was more here than I expected. I found this movie very predictable for the most part but the characters are so engaging (especially Jolie's) that you find yourself getting wrapped up in them and the story that surrounds them. The thing that stood out for me where a couple of scenes that had the audience so quite you could have heard a pin drop. One was when Angelina Jolie's character asks her fiancé what it is between them that dictates they should be together. Utter silence. The theater, in anticipation of what lame answer is about to spew forth from her jock boyfriend, was silent. The other was when Angelina's character is interviewing Stockard Channing's. Again total silence from the crowd. Those two moments in the movie made it worth while for me. The rest is just as you would expect. I didn't find any above caliber performances here, just the really good ones you'd expect from this cast. You wont see this one on Oscar night but I thought it was worth the ticket price and it didn't feel like a waste of time. That's my take. What's yours?

This film had a little bit of everything all rolled into one story and it was entertaining. Angelina Jolie,(Lanie Kerrigan) was a news reporter and gets involved with a homeless man that she interviews and this man predicts without any hesitation on his part, that Lanie is going to die on a Thursday, a week away. There are other details about the weather conditions and most of his predictions seem to come true. Lanie has lots of trouble getting along with her camera man on the job and they fight like cats and dogs. Lanie is looking for a better position in the TV industry and has her goals set very high, and at the same time wants to meet Mr. Right. There are very cute romantic scenes and Lanie has great conversations with her girl friends. However, Lanie begins to look at herself as a person other people see and she starts looking in other directions. Nice entertaining film.

Nothing like real life! Fancy directorial touches--and Angelina Jolie looking sexy in a Marilyn Monroe platinum 'do--cannot save innocuous, superficial film about a TV news-anchor being told she will die in a week by a street psychic with an impeccable record. Romantic side-plot between Jolie and cameraman Ed Burns never heats up, although Jolie is quite an intriguing presence all on her own (her performance is generally uneven, but her beautiful face is always worth reading). Has a few strong scenes, and an interesting supporting performance from Stockard Channing as a Barbara Walters-type, however the script doesn't dig very deep. **1/2 from ****